Today in History

Today is Thursday, Nov. 13, the 317th day of 2014. There are 48 days left in the year.

Today's Highlights in History:

On Nov. 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, a 28-year-old technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, died in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter. In Amityville on Long Island, New York, six members of the DeFeo family were shot and killed in their home by eldest son Ronald DeFeo, Jr. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the U.N. General Assembly, the first representative of a non-governmental entity to do so. Italian film director and actor Vittorio De Sica, 73, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

On this date:

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, Jean-Baptiste Leroy: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

In 1849, voters in California ratified the state's original constitution.

In 1909, 259 men and boys were killed when fire erupted inside a coal mine in Cherry, Illinois.

In 1927, the Holland Tunnel opened to the public, providing access between lower Manhattan and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River.

In 1937, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, formed exclusively for radio broadcasting, made its debut.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.

In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public city and state buses.

In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by Maya Lin, was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

In 1989, Polish labor leader Lech Walesa (lek vah-WEN'-sah) received the Medal of Freedom from President George H.W. Bush during a White House ceremony.

In 1994, Sweden voted in a non-binding referendum to join the European Union, which it did the following year.

Ten years ago: U.S. military officials said American troops had occupied the entire Iraqi city of Fallujah. Vice President Dick Cheney went to a hospital after experiencing shortness of breath; tests found nothing wrong. Rapper O.D.B. (real name: Russell Jones), a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, collapsed and died inside a recording studio in New York City two days before his 36th birthday. Harry Lampert, the illustrator who helped create the DC Comics superhero The Flash, died in Boca Raton, Florida, at age 88.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama, in Tokyo at the start of a weeklong trip to Asia, said his decision about how many troops to send to Afghanistan would come soon and that he was bent on "getting this right." U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced a decision to bring professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial in lower Manhattan (this plan was later dropped). Scientists said analysis of data from two NASA spacecraft that were intentionally crashed into the moon showed ample water near the lunar south pole.

One year ago: The Obama administration revealed that just 26,794 people had enrolled for health insurance during the first, flawed month of operations for the federal "Obamacare" website. (More than 79,000 others had signed up in the 14 states with their own websites.) Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted during a heated City Council meeting that he'd bought illegal drugs while in office, but he adamantly refused calls from councilors to step down and seek help. Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Max Scherzer of the Detroit Tigers won baseball's Cy Young Awards. Former Raiders tight end Todd Christensen died during liver transplant surgery in Utah; he was 57.